A glimpse of the unappetizing "bagel" that body-modification experts are creating in the foreheads of those who seek a cutting-edge look. YouTube

September 27, 2012

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The video: Insufficiently fulfilled by tattoos and piercings, Japanese body-art fans are taking things to another level with a bizarre practice called "bagel heading." As demonstrated on a new National Geographic show called Taboo (take a look below), a bagel-head artist gives a willing participant the look by pumping 400 cc of saline into his forehead until a large welt forms — then presses a finger into the lump to create a bagel hole-like dent. Unlike other forms of body modification, the procedure isn't permanent; the face bagel deflates in about a day as the body absorbs the saline. "People who like extreme body modification want to find their own way of doing things, and they're always looking for new ways to do that," Keroppy, a Japanese body modification artist, told Vice back in 2009. "The more progressive the scene gets, the more these people have to experiment and go their own way."

The reaction: First it was horn implants and eyeball tattoos, says Australia's Herald Sun. But this? It's a "hole" new trend. And, "oh boy, is it a lunch-ruiner," says Carmel Lobello at Death and Taxes. I'm not sure if one person getting paid to have the procedure done on television constitutes a trend, but it really does look like "bagels are bursting out of your brain." It's an intriguingly empty gesture, says Tracie Egan Morrissey at Jezebel, "There's no point to the whole thing, other than to wear a skin bagel." Watch it below: